Being a geek is no longer enough

By ADAM GIFFORD

At a user conference for a large multinational software vendor several years ago, an overweight young man with no clothes sense was pointed out to me.

He was, my informant told me, a legend in the company, having turned up one day at age 16 asking for a job.

His resume consisted of a copy of the vendor's core toolset, translated into an Asian language in which it had not previously been available.

He was hired on the spot, despite having minimal social skills.

But the days of the supergeek, when ability to relate to a machine was significantly more important than the ability to relate to human beings, may be passing.

Employers, recruiters and training firms all say "soft" skills like being able to communicate with customers and work with teams are often as important as the ability to hack out screeds of C+ or VB on demand, or to unravel the mysteries of the LAN.

"We are looking for X factor - the candidate needs to be compatible with client to maximise the service we deliver," says Joanna Lee from IT services firm gen-i.

"It is something people have, and to a degree they can probably train themselves how to communicate ideas and tweak and align themselves with others."

Lee says gen-i gives its technical staff a lot of customer service training.

"We want our staff to be aware that rather than just fixing equipment, the way they interface with the client is important."

Gary Langford, Eagle Technology chief executive, sees the issue from both sides - as an employer, and through the New Horizons IT training franchise which Eagle has in this country.

"While in many areas we need highly specialised programmers, even there we prefer people with more well-rounded skill sets and personality," Langford says.

"We do a lot of big projects in leading-edge technologies with large government or corporate clients, which require a huge amount of interactive skill with the client.

"Like all good clients, their needs change and develop, so our people need to interact and communicate well."

New Horizons has recently introduced online courses dealing with personal and team development and business skills.

"People need to broaden out and get beyond the geek image. You can't just be locked in a corner with no sunlight if you are going to blossom," Langford says.

"People who are going to progress through a technical career, or a general management career, need to know how to build teams, work in teams, present well. If you don't have those sorts of skills you can be locked into a narrow career."

Another training firm, Spherion, has made soft skills an important part of its courses for several years.

New Zealand manager Paul Walker says project management, communication, teambuilding and customer service are all skills workers need to understand.

"A lot of students say 'Why do we need to do soft skills?' but when they get out into the workforce they realise how important it is," Walker says.

"A few years ago anyone with an industry qualification like a Microsoft engineering certificate could walk into a job. Employers now look for all-round skills - being able to do Excel, Word, Powerpoint for presentations, which are now often essential to doing your job, and to have good writing skills."

Joanne McAdam-Marmont, technology recruitment manager for TMP Hudson Global Resources, says the growth of Indian development shops means pressure for old-style code cutters.

"Clients now want all-rounders, not developers as such but analyst programmers who can sit with clients and understand what they want, then put that in a spec," she says.

"So they need really good listening skills and writing skills before any code is cut."

She says there can be problems for new migrants looking for a place in the industry.

"Kiwis tend to be very outgoing, so they can do all aspects of the software lifecycle.

"However, we often find with immigrant candidates that they are very specialised in what they do, they have been doing small pieces of work over and over, so their skills are not as marketable." Her advice to such job seekers often comes down to working on their English language skills.

"The people who do well are the ones who embrace Kiwi culture, who go out of their way to learn English well and be part of the culture.

"The best way to do that is to get out there and talk to people.

"You can teach technical things, but the culture fit and how people fit as personalities, that [too] is important for clients."